Benfleet man trashed hotel room in cocaine-fuelled rage

Micheal Hance, 35, of Ridgemount in Benfleet, was arrested at the Ivy Downs Guest House after police were called to reports of a fight between a man and a woman.

He had smashed a television set and stabbed the bed with a knife.

When police arrested him, he said of the woman in the room with him: “I want you to keep me away from her as the next time I see her, I will kill her, the slut.”

When police searched his pockets, he had cocaine on him.

Hance was originally charged with sexual assault and battery of the woman, but those offences were dropped when she stopped cooperating with the police.

“Due to her mental fragility, the decision was taken not to compel her to come to court,” said prosecutor Cyrus Shroff.

However, Hance pleaded guilty in September to making threats to kill, two counts of criminal damage and possession of cocaine.

The woman told the authorities Hance had been “displaying odd behaviour” at the Ivy Downs Guest House in Hartington Road.

He began demanding to know whether there was somebody hiding in the hotel room and then flew into a wild rage, pulling a knife and repeatedly stabbing the mattress and bedding.

He also punched and smashed the hotel room’s TV.

Defence barrister Simeon Wallis said his client had “a difficult history”.

“The best mitigation for this defendant is his acceptance of wrongdoing,” he said, adding that his client was keen to work with probation on his alcohol and drug problems.

Judge Siew Loke told Hance: “Substance abuse issues are what seem to trigger your paranoid and violent episodes.”

She sentenced him to an 18-month community order with numerous requirements, including 120 days of monitored alcohol abstinence and a six-month drugs rehabilitation requirement.

She also ordered him to pay £200 compensation to the hotel.

Hance had already spent 85 days on remand and attended his sentencing hearing via video link from Chelmsford Prison.